ABSTRACT
Mikhail Gorbachev, in his Perestroika book, forcefully sets forth what he sees as the symptoms of the Soviet Union’s malaise. In the latter half of the 1970s, he points out, the country began to lose momentum. Stagnation “and other phenomena alien to socialism” began to appear. The economic growth rate declined. The economic gap between the Soviet Union and what he candidly refers to as “the world’s advanced nations” began to widen still more. The consumer “found himself totally at the mercy of the producer and had to make do with what the latter chose to give him.” Moreover, declining growth rates and economic stagnation “were bound to affect other aspects of the life of Soviet society.” In consequence, continues Gorbachev, “A gradual erosion of the ideological and moral values of our people began.”
